Gov. Nathan Deal announced late Wednesday that Republicans at the Capitol, unable to reach a compromise, have scrapped plans to move the date of the 2012 transportation referendums to November.
Deal said it was a joint decision with House and Senate leadership. Deal said in a statement that while he supports the referendums, which would allow regions around the state to decide whether to raise their sales taxes to fund regional transportation improvements, "it’s now obvious that it will take too much time to reach a consensus on changing the date. It’s best for taxpayers that we not let this special session drag on. Redistricting was our priority, and we have delivered a great product.”
Lawmakers returned to Atlanta on Aug. 15 for the once-a-decade process of redrawing the state's political boundaries. But the governor, in consultation with business leaders and fellow Republicans in the General Assembly, called on lawmakers to also consider moving the 2012 referendums from the July primaries to the general election.
And while the governor's staff told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Associated Press on Wednesday that the governor and GOP leaders in the Legislature had agreed to move the date, Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, and Senate President Pro Tem Tommie Williams, R-Lyons, later said no deal had been reached.
That led to the decision to pull the issue entirely and leaves supporters of the transportation referendums -- which could add $6 billion over 10 years for metro Atlanta transportation needs -- trying to build a campaign without a firm grasp on when the vote will actually be held.
The move to November 2012, or staying in July, might be a critical factor in whether the referendum passes in metro Atlanta, depending on how close the vote is.
One political analyst, Republican pollster Mark Rountree, said failing to get the date moved was “totally” not a blow, since the referendum still has a chance of passing in July, and the date still has a chance of being moved to November.
Rountree said he’d take the announcement at face value and thinks it will come up during the regular session next year.
“I think some people wondered how they could take on such a large controversial project in the first place” during the special session, he said.
Ralston, in a statement late Wednesday, said “reaching a workable consensus on the [transportation referendums] during this special session is simply not within reach.”
The metro Atlanta referendum’s political strategist, Paul Bennecke, said, “I don’t think we’ve lost anything significant. ... It’s still very electable on July 31.”
Legislation adopted in 2010 set the regional transportation referendums across the state for the July 2012 primary election. But Republicans began to realize the 1-cent sales tax would likely fare better in November, when more Democrats were likely to turn out.
Deal agreed to allow lawmakers to consider moving the transportation referendums during the special session, but tea party backers argued that moving the date amounted to voter shopping. Those influential conservative voters said if the transportation referendums are important enough to be moved, then the law also should require that all sales tax referendums, for whatever purpose, should be moved as well.
Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said late Wednesday morning that Republicans were on board with combining the transportation referendum date change with moving all future tax referendums. But top lawmakers quickly refuted that.
"It's a little premature to say we have a deal," Ralston said midafternoon Wednesday.
Ralston said, "We have had, from time to time, discussions with the governor and the Senate that I think one or two times we thought there was an agreement and then it turns out there's not an agreement. I'm not sure which one of those the governor was alluding to."
Similarly, a spokesman for Williams, the top-ranking Republican in the Senate, said the governor and the GOP caucus had "a very good discussion" but could not confirm a deal had been struck.
Deal this week said he thought it's also a good idea to move future referendums. Lawmakers, however, were concerned that the specific language in the governor's executive order calling lawmakers back to Atlanta only allowed a change in the date of the transportation referendums. However, after huddling with the General Assembly's legal counsel, they decided they could do both.
Georgia tea party leaders quickly praised the apparent agreement, thanking lawmakers and the governor for moving decisively. But by Wednesday afternoon, that was no longer the case, and Julianne Thompson, a state coordinator for the Georgia Tea Party Patriots, said it appeared that the House was holding up the process.
"We understood from all reports coming out of the Capitol and the governor's office that an agreement had been reached," Thompson said. "We encourage the speaker to move forward."
If the change had been made, it would have been done over the objection of Senate Democrats, who are unhappy about their treatment during the redistricting process.
Metro Atlanta Chamber head Sam Williams was noticeably absent Wednesday morning, when a small delegation from the chamber met privately with disgruntled Senate Democrats to get them on board. It did not go well.
“I’ve not heard anything in there to give me any reason to reconsider my opinion,” state Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, said afterward. “They came before us after having private meetings with everyone else first. Let [Republicans] do it. They rammed through the [redistricting] maps and voted in lockstep to approve them. They don’t need us. They don’t feel it’s important enough to give us a voice and a seat at the table.”
For Deal, the crumbling of the apparent agreement came after lawmakers failed to make changes the governor wanted to new state House district maps. As the Republican-controlled House redrew the 180 state House districts, they split Hall County -- Deal's home county -- into seven pieces.
Ralston said it was his "objective to fix the problem," but the maps passed both chambers and were sent to Deal's desk with Hall County still a puzzle. Despite that, however, the governor late Wednesday signed both the House and Senate maps into law.
Staff writers Ariel Hart and Kristina Torres contributed to this article.
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